


Turn My Insides Out

by fletchfeathers



Series: The Kids Are All Fucked Up (High School/College AU) [2]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: (a little anyway), F/F, Fluff, High School AU, Hurt/Comfort, chaos lesbians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 20:43:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18156830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fletchfeathers/pseuds/fletchfeathers
Summary: Sera takes a bite of the … whatever-it-is sitting on her plate and sighs dramatically, flopping forward onto the table."Everything is smelly," she groans, and around her the rest of her friends share concerned glances."Oh, jeez," Talon says, pushing away his own tray and leaning forward on his elbows next to her. "What happened?"Sera mumbles something indistinct into her elbows, and Talon nods along solemnly before addressing the others sat around. Tris, especially, watches Talon with intense sincerity."She says she has finally been defeated," he tells them. "This food is inedible even for Sera Coppergrass, eater of literal garbage."





	Turn My Insides Out

Liz has been _weird_ lately.

Sera pokes half-heartedly at her lunch, which her friends have already deemed Probably Not Edible, with her finger. She's still going to eat it, because she's hungry – like always – but she's also feeling weirdly hollow, and even food isn't lifting her mood.

Liz has been spending a whole bunch of time with the other Dragonborn she's friends with, a blue one with feathers, who is nowhere near as strong or cool as Liz but who does go to the gym with her, at least, and does gym things with her, where Sera just climbs on everything until she is told to leave.

And then ignores whoever told her to leave until they chase her out, sometimes with a broom.

(She'd felt like being a raccoon that day. It had felt right. The gym owners clearly didn't think so, but Sera wouldn't expect them to get it.)

Maybe that's why Liz isn't spending so much time with her anymore, between that and her spot on the wrestling team that Sera is permanently, irrevocably banned from. Tibs is strong and dragon-y like Liz, and he knows how gyms work, and isn't banned from wrestling. Or the Art block. Or the Music block. Or the corner store, or the other corner store.

And he's so _nice_. Almost annoyingly so. He makes it _super hard_ to hate him for stealing Liz from her, and yet.

Sera takes a bite of the … whatever-it-is sitting on her plate and sighs dramatically, flopping forward onto the table.

"Everything is smelly," she groans, and around her the rest of her friends share concerned glances.

"Oh, jeez," Talon says, pushing away his own tray and leaning forward on his elbows next to her. "What happened?"

Sera mumbles something indistinct into her elbows, and Talon nods along solemnly before addressing the others sat around. Tris, especially, watches Talon with intense sincerity.

"She says she has finally been defeated," he tells them. "This food is inedible even for Sera Coppergrass, eater of literal garbage."

"No," Sera growls, shoving Talon and wolfing down what's left on her plate. It doesn't taste of anything, and the texture (from experience) vaguely resembles dirt, but she will be damned if she will let anyone else have it.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees the dark-haired elf smirking, and lets another low growl rumble out of her. 

"Take it easy, Sera," Talon soothes, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms behind his head. "I promise nobody else wants it. You can have mine too, if you want." 

Sera's ears prick up a little at that, and she leans across Talon to start working on what's left of his lunch, which is most of it. Across the table, Windsor makes a faintly disgusted face. 

"Why are you like this," he says, and it is very much not a question. "You are a goblin." 

"I'm a gnome," Sera replies, reaching for Windsor's untouched lunch. Windsor recoils a little, but doesn't stop her. "Thistle is a goblin. Maybe you should get your eyes checked." 

"And somehow, she's less of a goblin than you," Windsor mutters, but Sera ignores him, because food.

Finishing everyone's lunch only serves as a distraction momentarily, though, because just as she is polishing off the last of Windsor's lunch, Liz and Thibaut walk in together. 

Tibs' arm is slung loosely around Liz's shoulders, and her expression is exasperated but fond as she rolls her eyes at something Tibs is laughing about. Today must have been a wrestling practice day, because their scales – and Tibs' crest of feathers – are still a little damp and shiny from the showers.

They might even have showered _together_.

The food in Sera's mouth tastes like ash, suddenly, and even though she forces herself to swallow it she pushes the plate away, something sour and writhing sitting heavily in her stomach.

Sera glances up as Liz and Tibs approach their table, and feels a little spark of hope when Liz glances her way; but then she carries on past to go and join the rest of the wrestling team, pulling a packed lunch from her bag as she sits down beside Tibs.

Sera glances over at the their table, and immediately wishes she hadn't, because Liz is saying something low and hushed to Tibs before glancing at her, and Tibs breaks into peals of laughter. 

And that's about all Sera can take. 

She stands suddenly enough that Talon flinches in surprise beside her, and he can barely even ask if she's okay before she storms out of the lunch room, leaving the double doors swinging in her wake.

 

-

 

It is Tris who finds her later, sitting on the roof of the Art block with her knees drawn up to her chest and her head buried in them, her tangled copper mane of hair obscuring her face.

"Sera," he says softly, "are you alright?"

"Go away," she grumbles, shifting to turn her back to him; but there's no real bite to it, and Tris hears the rawness in her voice as though she might have been crying.

Sera doesn't move or acknowledge him when he comes to sit beside her, leaving a comfortable amount of space between them – he knows how Sera is about her personal space – but he doesn't mind. For a long moment, he doesn't speak; he just lets Sera swipe furiously at her eyes, and listens to Sera's occasional sniffles, and focuses on stifling the urge to reach over and hug her.

"What do you want?" she eventually asks, her voice a little ragged from her tears. Tris just tilts his head ever so slightly back at her before he answers.

"I wanted to see if you were okay," he says.

"I'm fine," Sera says shortly, burying her head back into her knees.

"I don't know about that," Tris presses, keeping his voice as gentle as he can. He's seen Sera angry, and knows he really doesn't want to be on the receiving end of it. "We're worried about you. Me, and Talon, and Liz -"

Sera snorts a little at that, and Tris blinks in confusion. 

"Yeah, right," Sera says, and even from here Tris can almost feel the hurt radiating from her. "What does Liz care? She has Tibs now. She doesn't need me."

"Oh," Tris says eventually, "that's what this is about."

Sera narrows her eyes at him suspiciously, but Tris just leans back on his hands, gazing out across the soccer fields.

"I know what you mean," he says. "I kind of felt that way with Talon, before, when he was hanging out with Icarus and Jasmine a lot."

"But Talon's stupid gay for you," Sera says, as though it's the most obvious thing in the world, and Tris can't help but laugh.

"And you don't think Liz is for you?"

Sera doesn't respond. She furrows her brows, kicking a stray stone off the roof that was sitting near her boot, and is quiet for a long time.

"I thought … maybe," she finally says, and Tris sees tears shimmer in the corners of her eyes. "I – I really like her. I _really_ like her. And I thought – I thought …"

She pauses, swallowing hard. Tris just nods, waiting for her to collect herself.

"… but then Tibs showed up," she continues, "and now he – he's the one who gets to hang out with her, because he's really strong and knows how the gym works and isn't banned from wrestling, and – and I don't think Liz needs me anymore, but I … I still need her, kinda? And I don't – I don't know what to do."

Sera sniffles again, wiping fiercely at her eyes, and Tris rests a gentle hand on her shoulder. To his surprise, her eyes narrow a little at him, her ears flicking back, but she doesn’t resist.

“I think,” Tris says carefully, “Liz needs you more than you think.”

Sera blinks up at him, her green eyes still a little glassy with tears, and then looks away. Tris can almost feel the tension draining from her, the way the fight goes out of her, the way it so often does with Talon when he’s caught off guard.

“You should talk to her,” Tris continues. “She really is worried.”

Sera doesn’t move or reply, still staring off over the soccer fields, and after a few moments of silence Tris gets to his feet, dusting off his jeans and heading back towards the fire escape he’d come up through.

“Tris,” Sera says suddenly, just as he reaches for the door, and he turns back to her, tilting his head ever so slightly. Sera stands, twisting one of her braids around her fingers as she looks up at him, not quite meeting his eyes.

He waits, though, because he knows.

She scuffs the toe of her boot against the flat roof, opening and closing her mouth a few times as she searches for words.

And then she says, “I … didn’t know you could come up the fire escape.”

Tris laughs, despite everything, and opens the door, gesturing for her to go first. She heads past him a little hurriedly, not looking back as she trots down the stairs, and Tris shuts the door gently behind him.

All things considered? He thinks he handled that pretty well.

 

—

 

"Sera," comes a very familiar voice as Sera heads down the empty corridor towards the homeroom.

She almost doesn’t want to turn around, but she stops in her tracks, one of her ears flicking back towards the sound; and eventually, she makes herself look.

Liz is standing beside a row of lockers, and Tibs is nowhere to be seen. Almost instinctively Sera sniffs the air for him, but there’s no trace of him. Just Liz, still shower-fresh, her hair-like tendrils hanging loosely around her neck and her eyes boring into Sera’s in a way that’s almost overpowering, that almost makes her feel like she needs to run. 

"Little One," she says, uncharacteristically softly, as she reaches out a clawed hand to her. "You are frightened."

Sera shakes her head, but any words she has are trapped behind the hard lump in her throat and the reckless, ridiculous thundering of her heart in her chest. 

Liz sighs through her nose with a tiny puff of green acid, and takes a few steps towards Sera - and Sera can’t help it, she can’t, she flinches back, and she sees how Liz freezes in surprise before her face creases with desperate sadness, and it feels like the guilt is clawing open her stomach and spilling her guts on the ground. 

"Are you frightened of me?"

The words come out barely above a whisper as Liz’s eyes search Sera’s face. 

"No," she says, maybe a little too fiercely. Liz just watches her for what feels like hours, and Sera keeps trying to search for something, anything else to say to her.

"Sera," Liz says again, crouching on her haunches and folding her arms over her knees, her long tail curled almost protectively around her. "Please tell me what is wrong."

"Nothing," Sera says, even as she tears at her bottom lip with her teeth and tugs anxiously at her braids. "It doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters," Liz replies. "I – I want to know why you won't talk to me."

"Go find _Thibaut_ , if you want to talk so bad," Sera spits, all the anger and frustration of the last few weeks suddenly feeling too big for her to hold onto. "He's your favourite now, right? He's the one who – who you want to be around. So go talk to _him_ , and hang out with _him_ , and do – _do things_ with him, if he's so special. I don't _care_."

And Sera already feels a little guilty even as the words are still leaving her mouth, but mostly she just feels raw and scared, hot tears racing down her cheeks before she can stop them, and she can't bear to look Liz in the face.

"I don't care," she says again, though this time she feels the tremor in her voice. She wraps her arms around herself, desperate for the illusion of safety, of protection, from the hurt that rolls off Liz in waves – because she does care, she cares so much, she misses Liz and she hurts and she doesn't know why, and it's all so fucking messy and she just wants to dig a hole and hide in it until this all goes away and she can be alone again, the way she's been all her life, the way she – wants?

She doesn't even know any more. 

She always kind of thought being around Liz was better than being alone. She – she still thinks that, even under this storm of other feelings that she can't name and doesn't understand.

Liz gently tilts up Sera's chin with a claw, and Sera hiccups a little as she tries to slow her tears, sniffling messily as she finally meets Liz's gaze.

"Listen," Liz murmurs, brushing a tear from Sera's cheek with the pad of her thumb. "Tibs... Tibs is a friend, but he will never replace you, Little One. Never."

With her free hand, Liz reaches down her shirt and pulls free something Sera immediately recognises: a necklace with a Pepsi bottlecap on, the one Sera had spent a whole night after school putting together for her. 

Sera stares up at Liz, furrowing her brows in confusion.

"You kept it," she says incredulously, and Liz nods, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Of course. You made it for me."

Sera smiles a little despite herself, rubbing fiercely at her eyes, before Liz catches her wrists and holds them, soft and careful even with her incredible strength.

"I haven't … really known how to say this," Liz says, and this time it's her turn to look away, nervous and unsure. "But – but you are my favourite."

Sera just blinks, though her breath catches a little in her throat.

"I was worried it might scare you away," she continues. "I didn't know what you would think if I – if I …"

"You're my favourite, too," Sera cuts in, reaching up to touch Liz's cheek where she is still crouched in front of her. "More than my favourite. More than lions, or food, or – or anything."

Liz smiles at that, warm and fond, and holds out her arms, and Sera wastes no time launching into the hug, clinging to Liz as though she might disappear if Sera lets go; and Liz folds her warm, muscular arms around Sera, holding her close and stroking her hair, letting Sera burrow in as close as she can get.

"I thought you didn't like me anymore," Sera admits. "I know I said I don't care, but I do, because you're so great and if you didn't like me anymore, I don't know what I'd –"

"I love you," Liz says, almost a little absently - and Sera feels her immediately stiffen, and looks up at her, cocking her head to one side.

"I mean – I – I …" Liz stutters, and Sera just – Sera just beams, nuzzling into Liz's cheek.

 _Love._ If that isn't the name for the way Liz makes her feel light every time she looks at her and makes everything about her feel like home, then Sera doesn't know what is.

And Liz – _Liz!_ Her  _wife!_

Sera takes a deep breath, trying to steady her screaming nerves, and reaches up to cup Liz's cheeks in her hands, pressing the softest of kisses to the tip of her muzzle.

Liz's pupils go huge and dark, like a cat's, before her own face splits into a grin – and it's the best thing Sera's ever fucking seen.

"Say it again," Sera tells her, her cheeks already aching from how wide she's smiling, and Liz just laughs and pulls her in a little closer.

"I love you," Liz repeats, touching a kiss of her own to Sera's forehead, and Sera feels like she might explode out of her own skin in the very best way, giggling almost a little hysterically as Liz nuzzles gently into her cheek. 

She – she _loves_ Liz, and Liz loves _her_ , and – and –!

"I love you, too," Sera tells her, and Liz's smile almost blinds her as she gets back to her feet, scooping Sera up with her.

Sera wiggles briefly in Liz's arms, barely able to contain herself, before she peppers Liz with kisses everywhere she can reach, letting her chest grow warm and bright as Liz's delighted laughter rings around the hallway.

"I think," Liz says, "no more class today. We should go get food."

"Food!" Sera echoes triumphantly, clambering up onto Liz's shoulders, and Liz heads for the double doors out of the front of the school, where the sun shines down warm and bright on their backs.

Fuck class, fuck Tibs, fuck _all of it,_ because this is just about the greatest day Sera could have ever imagined.

**Author's Note:**

> SORRY FOR MAKING SERA CRY but also i'm not because i am a criminal who does heinous character crimes.
> 
> this is a sort-of sequel to [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17384966) by my fren [wayne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/improperdancer) who is the creator of liz, my wonderful chaos wife.


End file.
